


Lethe

by goingsparebutwithprecision



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Memory Loss, PTSD, aftermath of the first reboot film
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 09:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6323242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingsparebutwithprecision/pseuds/goingsparebutwithprecision
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim comes back from the Narada with gaps in his memory. See notes for content warnings/tag explanations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lethe

 “And then this giant Romulan appears out of nowhere, he must have been what, 6, 7 feet?” Sulu glances at Jim, and Jim nods confirmation, brings the beer bottle to his lips, and drinks. They’re in a bar off campus, but close enough to stagger home. Everyone’s out of hospital who’s going to come out of hospital, except for Pike, who’s on painkillers and PT and copious amounts of sarcasm, which is apparently how he deals with trauma, and they’ve had the “thank fuck we’re not dead” party three or four times since. This though, right now, is just a quiet drink. It’s good, Jim thinks, looking round the table, they did good. Uhura’s chatting to Chapel, who’s Bones’s new favourite after that thing with the vintage-style tourniquet and the improvised holo-imager; Gaila and Scotty are cackling at each other’s dirty jokes, and Chekov is listening with wide, awestruck eyes, as Sulu tells them what really went down on the drill.

“And Kirk’s gone over the edge, but I can’t do anything about it. This guy’s got me cornered by one of the vents, and if I go for him I’m crispy-fried, and then-“

Jim freezes, beer halfway to his mouth. He remembers going over the edge. He remembers that, like a high-def holo projected over his eyes, he can taste the blood in his mouth and feel the burn in his hands, in his arms, he remembers exactly where he was in relation to Sulu, he remembers what that arsehole looked like right before he stamped on his hands the first time, he remembers the smell and the sound and the hiss-rush-roar of adrenaline, but he doesn’t remember how he got up.

He got up. He knows this, because they destroyed the drill, and then he threw himself off it going after Sulu. And to throw himself off it, he must have got back on it. He knows he did. He knows it with absolute certainty.

But he doesn’t _remember_ it.

There’s no gap. There’s no disconnect, no ragged edge. There’s no pause, no sense of time passing, no blur of images or vague shapes or sequence of events. He was off the drill, and then he wasn’t.

Fuck.

That’s…

 Fuck.

Jim drains his beer, and tries not to think about it.

 

 It turns out the vacuum of memory is just as powerful as the vacuum of space. Jim can’t seem to resist poking around in either of them.

 

“And you disarmed your assailant how?” Jim blinks.

“I’m very disarming,” he says, with a flash of a brilliant smile. Deflect and distract, easy as breathing and just as automatic. It’s a useful skill to have, but it won’t help him here. He can see at least one admiral rolling their eyes. Bones shifts besides him, and Spock maybe straightens a little. Jim wonders if he’s doing the disapproving eyebrow, and if he is, whether it’s for him or the admiralty.

The admiralty can shove it. Jim’s been calm, he’s been measured, he’s been respectful, and even when furious he’s been so quietly (tell me again how a more experienced transporter tech could have caught a moving target on an incipient black hole, I dare you). He’s taking this seriously. The admiralty need to see that.

The hearing moves on.

 

It’s not anything important. It’s never anything important, not really. Jim knows, but he doesn’t know how he knows, and then he doesn’t know anymore.

 

“Not to discourage this apparent lapse into responsible adulthood, Jim, but weren’t you here for all of this?”

Jim scrubs a hand over his eyes, and wills Bones to disappear. Nope, still leaning over his shoulder, eyebrows raised, tone belligerent.

“It’s important to see the event from every angle,” he says, in what he’s starting to think of as his Captain voice. “See what we missed, what went wrong. What we can do better next time.”

“Next time?” Bones growls, and Jim knows he’s concerned before he’s even opened his mouth, genuinely concerned, no matter how flippant his next remark will be. “There’s going to be a next time? How many homicidal Romulans are you expecting to visit us from the future, Jim?

 

It keeps happening. It’s like probing your mouth with your tongue and finding a missing tooth with no warning. No pain, no blood, just gone. No, it’s like missing a step going down the stairs, you know that step is there, dammit, but you can’t put your foot on it, can’t even see it. Why wouldn’t it be there, it’s a damn staircase – Jim gives up, and gets shitfaced instead.

 

He sits at the bar, and nurses a drink, and tells himself it’s not a big deal. Nothing that’s important is missing, not really, and with the hearings over he doesn’t have to worry about being caught out, not in a way that will get his ship taken away from him, anyway.

It niggles, though.

What if he missed something? What if there’s something important in those empty seconds, in the time he doesn’t remember passing? Could he have saved Engineer Olson? Spock’s mother? Vulcan?

An arm goes round his shoulder and he leans back without thinking, breathes deep, and relaxes. He knows it’s Gaila without even turning round.

“Hey there, Jimmy,” she says, chin on his shoulder, hair in his ear. “You doing ok?”

“Not dead yet,” he says, and Gaila laughs, he can feel it all down his back, warm and joyful and safe, and Jim _knows_ he can’t save everyone, even if he doesn’t believe it, even if he can never know for sure if he could have saved more, but God, he’s glad they saved her.

He’ll never know. But they’re here now. They’re alive _now_.

 It’s not enough. Jim drains his drink, and lets Gaila lead him away. He can work with that.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is tagged PTSD because it features memory loss caused by trauma. This is the only symptom of PTSD explored in this fic.
> 
> It's very strange to me, coming back to post this a while after I wrote it, because time gives perspective and dulls sharp edges, and the ending I would write if I wrote this now might be very different. But it was what I needed to hear at the time. Even if the lost seconds keep niggling, life goes on. And yes, I've found that I can work with that.


End file.
